


As you are, a kettle of blue

by BakanoHealthy



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: (and someone who got dealt a terrible hand at life), (original characters being villains of the week), Canon-Typical Violence, DGHDA-Typical Mood Whiplash, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Pararibulitis (Dirk Gently), Todd Brotzman Snapped: the fic, Todd Brotzman needs a hug, also there is a semblance of a case going on at the same time but. eh, there is a lot of appearances from the fuck word, written as gen because thats who I am but can be read as slash or pre-slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 13:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17961275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BakanoHealthy/pseuds/BakanoHealthy
Summary: Todd snapped on day three.Before that a lot happened, which made the snapping of Todd warranted, but Dirk was just there for the ride, really. It's not- well, it's not good. Notgoodgood, anyhow.





	As you are, a kettle of blue

**Author's Note:**

> Before I say anything else, I need to extend a special thank you to Cosme (cosmetreee) for sitting with me through writing this fic. It was fun to write, but it was also longer than anything I've ever written in English before, and a bit foreign to my hand, so were it not for them I don't think I could've made it as far as to finish and post it. I also want to thank them for letting me drag them into this pit in the first place, and for bouncing ideas back and forth with me. Their presence brings as much joy to me as writing and art does, and none of the angst and heartache. 
> 
> As I said in the tags, this is my longest oneshot yet, and lords did I feel the strain on its back halfway through writing it. Though I hope what comes through is the fun and the emotions and not the death of its author, on many, many levels. 
> 
> Thank you for clicking through despite the chaos that happens before this point. Enjoy.

 

Todd snapped on day three.

 

* * *

  

Dirk should elaborate.

Okay, here's Todd's thing: his surface tolerance for anomalies in his life is low. Like, below-Farah-level low. And he likes to make it known! he very much does. Anyone who lingers in his vicinity for over five minutes will immediately learn, because he will tell them. Mostly by complaining. Todd likes to complain, and it's part of his charm, in Dirk's and no one else's opinion. Farah sure doesn't care for that as much as she just endures it.

That is not to say that Todd is a rigid man in his routines - he is adaptable, crafty, and his mind for puzzles is a beautiful thing. The man just requires a healthy, regular, quite sizeable side of complaining to go with whatever it is that he does at any point. And it’s not that it hasn’t had its use before; Todd was most acquainted with normalcy (or, well, dullness) pre-things, and he still has an eye for the baseline of where things should be even now, and he doesn’t hesitate to call people out on being ridiculous when he feels it justified. And that usually stuns a supervillain like nothing else.

So: Todd has a complaint specially made for every occasion, which means he isn’t quiet too often. His happiness ranges anywhere from a warm, fuzzy buzz with smiles and light elbow jabs to downright mania full of breathless laughters and clinginess, and his annoyance is aimed outward most of the time. Which Dirk is very okay with, by the way; he isn’t good at reading social cues or body language, if that hasn’t made itself clear yet. He likes when people just say what they’re feeling. And, well, Todd sure does that.

The almost constant slight buzz of Todd also serves to signify when something is seriously wrong, more wrong than usual, which is when it goes quiet.

And that was half a day ago.

...Dirk isn’t elaborating much, is he now.

Okay, so, there was this case. Which was three days before this point. A case, very intriguing, very exciting, with all these little details scattered all over the city, leading them into two days of leg work and snooping and one unfortunate swim involving a very vicious goldfish, and finally landing them in a crypt under a hipster coffee shop. A case that started with Dirk being hit on the head with a medium-sized, hardcover book, a fact he had generously tolerated but which came back to bite him in the bum by the end of their second investigative day, in the form of another whap nailing his head right where it had been assaulted before.

Generally Dirk just took these attacks with grace and serenity - things happen to him - but their current client (whose actual identity they had not even come very close to finding out yet) was sliding ever so slightly to his bad side on account of that.

So! The book was locked with a small iron lock, which in hindsight Farah could definitely get through in twenty seconds flat, but Dirk had just immediately fixated on the idea of a key. It was logical, but not very open-minded of him, he will admit; but in his defense, that lead had just been so _attractive_. Either it was a nudge from the universe, or he had some serious soul searching to do.

Fortunately the latter was not the case, given that the chase for the key lead them to an antique shop, whose owner asked for a favour, which lead them to a CD store, which had seen some shenanigans before their arrival, and they were then sent to an old lady, and then to a park, where the swim happened, and by the end they didn’t get the right key for the book, but that key worked on the barista in the hipster coffee shop. Yes, the barista.

That was awkward for every party involved.

But anyway, they got inside the crypt (the barista was glowing, but not in a miraculous way. It felt more like turning on an agonized head lamp that followed you around), someone snuck in after them, Farah was shut in the inner chamber, Dirk was hit upside the head, and the next time he opened his eyes it was to the roof of a van, Todd unconscious beside him.

Well, not unconscious. Todd was sleeping - he didn’t have that scary stillness to someone unconscious. That, however, wasn’t _that_ comforting a knowledge, given that Todd was still working on his insomnia problem, and only fell asleep in stressful environments when he was absolutely, one hundred percent exhausted. Which was why Dirk let him sleep while he sat down for an amicable, gun-laden talk with their captors.

That talk went something like this: _I’m looking for someone from a prophecy, and you also appear in that prophecy, so I’ve kidnapped you so I can have all the pieces in one place._ First of all, flattering of the prophet, second, why didn’t you guys come to our office. We have a business built around these kinds of mysteries, and I feel like it’s being disrespected right now. _Because we’re gonna kill the man the prophecy sends us to, and the world is blind to our mission._

Cool, very cool. I definitely do not have problems with any of this at all.

Also why is my friend grabbed?

 _He was there_ , the captor who had been speaking up until that point waved the gun around for emphasis, while the other one eyed that action with annoyance and wariness.

It wasn’t a very exciting exchange of words.

They covered up the windows in the cabin, so Dirk didn’t have much of an idea of where they were going, and they stripped him and Todd both of their phones, so no chance of calling for help. Todd woke up extra groggy, which signaled something Not Fun, and Dirk spent the first evening in captive assessing Todd’s situation while hanging onto Todd’s arm so he knew he wasn’t alone in his predicaments. Well, some of them.

Todd, of course, started his actual wakefulness with, “Where are we.”

“I would say this is a van,” Dirk offered his input, “but. Well. I have seen this interior in many places, an elevator included.”

Todd made to stand up. “Those assholes hit you in the head?” He grimaced. “That’s not— I just want to know. It’s not a jab. Fuck, my fucking head.”

“It’s okay to sit down,” Dirk’s voice wobbled a bit dangerously there. “And, my head is. Very whole. They did hit it, in the same spot the book hit it, which I didn’t appreciate by the way, but it is in one piece, or you would have noticed I think. And so would I. I would very probably be talking much less than I am right now, and just, do less in general. I would be very still, and oh, that’s very morbid Dirk. Dirk should stop.”

“Dirk should stop,” Todd echoed with a hint of fondness amidst a sea of annoyance. He rose to his feet with a grunt.

“More importantly,” Dirk pressed forward while quickly arranging his limbs into pre-standing up position, “I wasn’t there when what happened to you… happened. I was there physically, but I was. Out. Is what I meant. So I am asking whether you have been…”

“Hit. Yes— yeah. I was hit.” Todd said, and walked over to the bench bolted onto the side wall. It was wobbling a bit with the lurch of the van. He dropped to his knees and snuck his hand underneath it. “Okay, so. If we’re in a van right now then there should be a panel here somewhere that— opens into… a… thing. And we can jam the axle.”

Dirk stared at him, while his head registered none of that other than the vague impression of _huh Todd knows these things very cool_. His brain was, in fact, rather busy chasing around the fact that Todd didn’t look like he had a concussion like a particularly excitable puppy. So Todd didn’t fall asleep after a concussion. It wasn’t the hit that took him out.

“You had an attack, didn’t you,” Dirk said lamely, and Todd’s shoulders tensed.

“I— yeah.”

Dirk stared at him some more.

“Don’t let me start on it, because I won’t stop. I won’t be able to, and I won’t want to, and in no time I’m gonna be on the other side of that window strangling someone, who’s probably driving this thing, and I will yell a lot, and we will die in an incredibly shitty way.”

“I won’t let you start on it,” Dirk swore, drawing a cross on his heart with his finger. “But it might be wise to sit down for another minute first.”

Todd shrugged. “I slept it off. Got it,” he said, and crouched down even further to look at whatever it was that he got. “It’s screwed shut, so, hm. Dirk?” He turned his head to the side to look at Dirk. “You still have the key on you?”

Dirk held up his hands. “It was still in the barista, per my last memory pre-whap.”

“Pre-wha—” Todd’s face scrunched up slightly. “Nevermind. Never-goddamn-mind. Do I—” He groped around for his wallet, a search that came up empty. “Of all times for some dumbass kidnappers to be thorough. Of course. Alright.”

Dirk was still staring at him, and, well. He wasn’t going to stop, if one asked. He was just acknowledging the action.

Todd turned to him again, and the indignance in his face really shouldn’t be this endearing. “What is the deal of those dudes, anyway?”

“I do have an answer for that, actually,” Dirk informed him, delightfully, and he told Todd about the prophecy. By the end of the explanation Todd has sat down onto the wobbly bench, hands on his face, the arch of his back telling of a soul-deep weariness.

“Why.” He groaned through his hands. “Can’t they have normal motives for once. They have a fucking gun each, sure, but not enough common sense to split between their fucking heads.”

 _Common sense is a rarity, and yet very much overrated_ , Dirk thought cheerfully. What he said out loud though, was “They are very whimsical.”

Todd sighed. He tipped his head back until it collided with the window with a hitch in his breath. The window was still stubbornly covered in dark film. “I hate it when people like this kidnap us,” he grumbled. “I mean— it’s nice of them to not tie us up, or drug us, or give a shit what we say or plan between us, but.” His left arm flailed up in a defeated motion. “They sure got us here in this van. While being stupefyingly incompetent. And I hate that.”

“I get what you mean,” Dirk nodded.

Todd looked at him, and then at the back door, and then at the wall separating them from the driver’s seat, and then he sighed and walked up to try the back door. It was locked. Todd didn’t look less annoyed. He returned to the bench to start peeling the film from the window.

“Is this a part of the case?” He asked while scraping at a corner that did come off with his nail.

Dirk pursed his lips. “Ab-solutely no idea.”

“I.” The sound of nail-on-edge-of-film started fading into the background. “Have been thinking about the old woman.”

“Have you now.”

“Have— you know what the hell I mean. And also she’s just weird as hell, like. Not just old-lady weird. Like _weird_ weird. You get what I mean?”

“It’s not nice to judge, Todd.”

“She sent a _goldfish_ after us! And the smell of— God I hope that was fish pellets…”

They talked about the case well into the night, Dirk waving his hands and moving around the space, Todd giving up on the window after clearing three fingers worth of the film. Dirk knew it was about four in the morning when his eyes started to droop and his thoughts lapsed into circles, and when he yawned Todd moved from the bench to sit next to him on the floor. It was pitch black outside, from what they could see through the newly transparent patch of window.

The van lurched to a stop all of a sudden, and a few muffled footsteps later the back door opened to reveal two guns trailing on them. Todd sat up straighter, hands in the air. Dirk, after a few moments, did the same.

“Okay, okay.” Todd said, calm in that exact way someone was obviously freaking out on the inside would be, but Dirk had heard him use this voice enough to recognize it as an act. That, and the fact that Todd was complaining about these individuals’ kidnapping competence mere hours before. “Dirk, he. He told me about the prophecy you guys heard. Whatever it is, we have nothing to do with it, okay? We’re just two dudes, we didn’t know where we were or what the hell that place was, if that’s where you guys do your- your business, we will just. Forget all of it. Not a single word out of our mouth, ever. I promise. Please, _please_ let us go.”

His voice even broke a little at the end. Dirk was… impressed, sure, but there was just a lot to unpack in this situation. He opted to say nothing, open his eyes wide, and nod as frantically as possible. He was nowhere as good at acting as Todd. Todd, with all of his observance and puzzle solving and bluffing, was well on his way to become a real spy.

Their kidnappers, however, were not of the mind to appreciate that. “That’s not happening,” the talkative of the two said, while the other one shrugged. “Dirk Gently’s in the prophecy, and you know our plan now. We just need to be sure you’re not telling on us. Anyway, we forgot to restrain you.”

He trained his gun on Todd as the other lowered his gun to the ground, below the floor of the van, and climbed inside. Todd swallowed heavily and blinked a bit frantically as a zip tie tightened around his wrists. The man grabbed for Dirk next and he went through the same treatment.

They captors were done and gone just as quickly and suddenly as they appeared. After the door had locked on them again and the engine started with an agonizing cough, Todd dropped his shoulders and leaned back against the side with a thunk.

“This is—” He pressed his hands on his face and said with a groan, “the _most_ bullshit. God.”

 

* * *

 

It had been okay up until that point. Well, as okay as a kidnapping could have gone, as in nobody had shot at them yet, they were still not drugged, Dirk could kind of stand up to stretch his legs, and they were given food at one point. The van didn’t stop, the kidnappers didn’t talk to them, and Dirk was definitely bored.

Todd was… frustrated. He checked the panel under the bench again, looked through the clear patch on the window every hour or so (they didn’t recognize the surrounding, or however much of it they could gleam through the patch), and the rest of the time he practically buzzed with restless annoyance and anxiety. He hadn’t calmed down at all since they got zip tied.

They kept going like that for about another half a day (if Todd’s inner clock was right. Dirk just had to trust him, because Dirk’s sense of time was screwed to hell), and then the van stopped, and the back door opened again to reveal the kidnappers.

“I have a small, irrelevant question,” Dirk said immediately. “What is your name? And your friend’s name, of course. I have been addressing you as ‘the kidnappers’ in my head for too long now, and it’s becoming very distracting.”

Todd stared at him, and he could feel the incredulity in that stare.

The kidnappers looked at each other, and then the talkative one shrugged again. “Adrian,” he said. He talked a lot, but he didn’t emote much. Even his voice was even, like a mirror. “And here’s Jon.”

“Cool! Great! We know each other now, we are getting acquainted,” Todd chimed in, nervousness worked into his voice. “Are you guys letting us go? Or— does, does knowing your names mean we aren’t going? Jesus, god, I. Please. I’m, oh God,” he trailed off, swallowed visibly, and glanced over to Dirk with round, very blue eyes.

“I’m here to talk,” Adrian said, “please calm down.”

Todd stared at the guns, and then at Adrian.

“I don’t shoot if you don’t make me,” Adrian said. He then tried to keep his gun aimed at Todd as he climbed into the van, Jon following suit after he’d sat down on the bench. The gun were very close now. Dirk stared at them, and then at Adrian. And Jon.

There was a very long moment of silence. Again, Dirk had never been proud of his sense of time.

Adrian sat up a bit straighter when Dirk did the exaggerated shrugging motion with an _mm-hm_ in place of a _well go ahead then_. He was wearing suit, but not _good_ suit. It was a bit large and crumpled and the tie was just noncommittal in a sad way. Jon looked more sporty and organized, if black tank top and black slack could be considered that.

“So,” Adrian said, still as even as ever, “I have taken another look at the prophecy, and—”

“We aren’t really required?” Todd piped up.

“—it seems to point to you,” Adrian again ignored him in favour of gesturing with his gun at Dirk, a motion he really didn’t appreciate, “being a compass of sort.”

Dirk felt Todd tense up a bit at that. It was understandable, given that they had, by that point in time, run into weird people with weird expectations for Dirk seventeen times in total. A worrying majority of those seventeen were very aggressive and… murdery, and exactly only two ever reconsidered their view on his _thing_. There had definitely been some kidnapping attempts, and a lot of threatening at gun points (well, _some_ threatening at gun points, but in Dirk’s humble opinion, any amount of threatening at gun points is a lot), and, really, the amount of injuries and bleeding resulting from those encounters was just ridiculous. And Todd was there the whole time, got shot at a not-zero amount of time, buzzing with worry and guilt all the way through, complaining extra grumpily, because the seventeen people on the list were just the exact brand of people Todd could _not_ tolerate.

This time around their kidnappers - Adrian and Jon - were shaping up to be another entry on the Stupid Fucking People I Can’t Believe We Have To Deal With list (Todd was usually more precise in his naming, which only serve to highlight how much he really did not like the people on the list); they kidnapped Dirk and Todd, they hit them over the head not in an affectionate manner, they had guns, they followed a prophecy, and just then they were weird with Dirk’s _thing_. But they also weren’t entirely within the range yet: they hadn’t been incredibly aggressive, and. Well. They were mostly chill, actually. Just two calm, business-as-usual, extremely normal individuals, aiming guns at Dirk and Todd after they _hit them over the head_.

Dirk reserved his rights to be a bit spiteful about that detail, thank you very much.

Their captors’ precarious position on the cliff above the SFPICBWHTDW list didn’t win them any favour from Todd, however. So far he hadn’t lost any blood, sure, but he didn’t like people that are hard to read. Todd had his neat categories of how to interact with the outside world, as any other adult did, and his sorting system relied a lot on how the other person or people read to him, so he of course didn’t like people who were antagonistic and also hard to read. He couldn’t yet explode the way he would at someone like Suzie Boreton, because these people were just not there in the reaction zone yet, so he had to settle with just being tense and uncomfortable and annoyed and having an all around below average time.

He, of course, carried on with his act no matter his own comfort. Dirk very much wished he wouldn’t, but they were in a van with their wrists zip tied and guns aimed in their general direction, and. Well. Todd’s act was still his actual feelings filtered through a reaction scheme afterall. “Wait, wait wait wait wait— what. What does that mean? A c- a compass?”

Adrian shrugged without even glancing at Todd. “It’s how the prophecy reads. _For a man whose gaze points westward is always true to his treasure_. West is the prophet’s name, and I got your name from the first letter of every verse.”

Todd definitely did a small, almost unreadable grimace at that. Dirk’s curiosity was piqued, but he told himself firmly _do not start with your questioning at gun points_ and sat still.

“Dude, that sounds like a coincidence,” Todd said with a lot of blinking. Dirk could hear how much Todd didn’t believe in that, but these people didn’t know Todd. “I saw— I saw my name in the first letters of paragraphs in the newspaper all the time! I don’t—” He jumped a bit in genuine surprise at Jon aiming the gun squarely on him, a hint of true animosity actually flickering in the man’s eye. “Hey! I— I just think! I just think that’s a bit of a reach…?”

Adrian shrugged again. He was a video game NPC, and shrugging was his dialogue animation, and it was boring in the most grating way. “Most people are blind to my mission.”

Oh, Todd had _so_ many things to say to that. Dirk could _feel_ how much Todd had to say to that. It was a miraculous feat, one that Dirk knew must have done some kind of damage to Todd’s soul, for Todd to sit still and act like he was dumbfounded and defeated.

“So,” Adrian carried on, “we’ll sit you in the front from now on.”

Hands grabbed Dirk’s arm, and before words could leave his mouth to express how he didn’t like sitting in the front, thank you for the invite but allow him to courteously decline, he could feel the muzzle of one of the gun against his ribs. It was as noncommittal as everything else Adrian did, and oh wow he was starting to resend that with real fervour now.

They of course left Todd in the back by himself, locked in with nothing but empty space and artificial, unnerving, unblinking light for company, and Dirk was seated between Adrian and Jon, and his urge to fidget immediately started to overwhelm him. The view of the road, unobscured by dark film, bright and deserted and cold despite the color of burnt grass and sunlight on the ground, did nothing to calm him down. His attention was divided between all the details his eyes caught, and he retained none of them.

Jon was annoyed with how Dirk shifted between tensing up and squirming. His grip on the gun, still aiming at Dirk from the side, tightened, and Dirk felt both petty triumph and a vague fear over that.

“Where to, Dirk Gently?” Adrian was looking at him. Eyes on the road, Dirk thought, and felt guilty for being a hypocrite.

“Left on the next turn,” he said. “And, um, if I may? On the subject of the prophecy…”

“Shut up,” Jon mumbled. Adrian didn’t seem to hear that, but Dirk jumped slightly at the nudge of the gun against his side anyway.

Adrian tapped his finger on the steering wheel. “I found it in a spam mail. Hidden beneath all the graphics, just plain blocks of words. I was clearing out my late wife’s mail.”

“Very sorry for your lost,” Dirk said politely, and Adrian nodded, as if he was acknowledging and appreciating the proper way a conversation should go when one party mentions a lost loved one. His wife must have passed away for a long time ago, if the smooth evenness of how he brought her up meant something. They sat in silence for a minute, and then Dirk just mentally said screw it and blurted out, “May I hear the prophecy? If you don’t mind, of course,” he added very quickly when he heard Jon huffed.

Adrian used his gun-holding hand (right, he was still holding his gun while driving, of course), to gesture to a crumpled flyer on the dashboard. Dirk looked at him, and then at Jon, who was rolling his eyes, and then he reached over to pick it up.

It was a garishly technicolored flyer for a new convenience store franchise, one that Dirk had never seen or heard of, which might be a bit weird given that Dirk had been back to the States for a few years now, had traveled for cases a lot, and the flyer seemed old but not ancient. In fact, the date on the flyer was three years ago, which meant Dirk could have been there for the grand opening. He did love grand openings. Even though _Launda-7_ wasn’t the smoothest name on the tongue.

True to Adrian’s words, the verses were printed below the blurry pink-and-ultramarine-blue frame, in small black prints that really wasn’t doing it for Dirk’s eyes right now. He desperately wished for it to be because he was in a van that didn’t feel the most stable, and not because his eyesight was getting worse. All he had to rely on was his perfect eyesight and his incredible friends and his witty charm that didn’t quit.

He gave up reading after four lines. It read like a bad love song. If he could rate the overall experience of reading it on a scale of ten, he would have to take away at least some points.

Adrian finally took the left Dirk told him to, and while watching the road, the clock on the dashboard screen finally caught his eyes. “It’s Thursday,” he mumbled. “Oh God, it’s Thursday.”

He turned around to face the wall separating his seat and the back, persistent despite Jon’s menacing shove of the gun in his side. Adrian spared him a glance.

“Did you get a pill bottle out of any of our pockets?” He asked, turning forward again, knocking into Jon’s gun. Jon was very peeved at that. “Small, orange with white cap, green-and-white pill—”

“Oh, those,” Adrian said. “I don’t remember hanging onto them? Jon probably threw them away along with your phones.”

Jon reacted in some way at that, but Dirk didn’t register it. “Stop the van. I need to see my friend.”

 _Now_ Adrian looked at him.

“My friend needs those pills,” Dirk was getting impatient. Or, well, desperate. He felt his own breathing speeding up. “He needs a dose every three days.”

The silence answering him was suffocating.

Dirk pushed over to Jon’s side to grab at the door handle. He could feel the gun on the back of his head, and he could hear the _Hey!_ Both Jon and Adrian let out, but he really couldn’t spare attention for those things right now. He did register the van stopping with a screech and a lurch.

“Mister Adrian, if I may address you as such,” he said, with a calm he didn’t feel, “my friend may very possibly be in the middle of an attack right now, and I would have no way to know, and if you want a single word of direction out of my mouth, you need to let me see him right. This. Moment.”

Adrian and Jon looked at each other, and then Jon groaned and Adrian opened the door on his side. Muffled footsteps again, then the door in front of Dirk’s face opened as well, then he had to sit up so Jon could step out first, and this was taking _too much bloody time_ , and Dirk practically tumbled into the back when the door was unlocked.

Todd was sitting up against the side. He looked at Dirk with the expression that indicated he had just done some snooping around yet again. “Adrian!” was, however, the first word out of his mouth. “Hey, guys! Does this mean—”

“Your friend’s fine,” Adrian interrupted, and he made to grab at Dirk’s arm again. Dirk yanked it out of his reach with a huff.

“No, see, I’m going to stay right here with Todd. You know,” he glared at Adrian, “that if you bring me to the front seat again, I will do what I just did there every few hours. Or every few minutes. Truthfully, I will just immediately kick the door open to run out again the moment you close it behind me. You have my word on the matter.”

Adrian seemed to believe him, because he took a long look at him, then sighed, shrugged, and turned to Jon to say, “Get in the back with them.”

Jon didn’t like that, but _screw Jon_.

Three people in the back closed the space up to a slightly claustrophobic size, and Jon’s attitude and gun didn’t help the matter. Todd was tense all the time now, which made Dirk hover in a kind of embarrassing manner, but, well. At least he had Todd in his sight again. He always appreciated that, but he appreciated that doubly now because of the many things that had happened and were happening around them.

“So,” Todd said, just the right amount of awkward, and Dirk had the impression only the lack of annoyance in his voice was manufactured, “what were you guys doing at the front?”

“Well, I was being a compass,” Dirk said. Jon didn’t like that they were just talking freely in front of him, but again, screw Jon. “A very dashing, very proper, only slightly unethical one.”

“So you just. Tell them where to go?”

“I work on a sophisticated left-right basis, Todd. I am very accurate within my range.”

Todd’s huff of laughter was true amusement, and Dirk felt his heart (which was beating very violently and relentlessly until now, huh, he hadn’t even noticed) calm down a little bit. He wouldn’t yet bring up the pills. He would probably not bring up the pills. Todd wouldn’t like that he didn’t bring up the pills, but then again, Todd also wouldn’t like being stressed over not having his pills on him, which could trigger a premature attack.

Adrian and Jon’s plus points over other kidnappers they had experienced were rapidly depleting by this point.

Todd also seemed to have something he needed to tell Dirk, which he signaled by huddling a bit closer to Dirk, but Jon’s presence opposite them tied their hands. Metaphorically said, since their hands were still zip tied.

Stars above, Dirk just didn’t like Jon at _all_.

They stayed like that, Dirk and Todd against the side, Jon on the bench, as day tumbled into night and Dirk felt like his legs would just collapse in on itself like those extendable sticks teachers used to point at the board. Every once in a while Jon’s phone would buzz, then he would ask Dirk for the direction in a tight voice, and Dirk would just choose left or right at random, and he would text that back to Adrian. Todd didn’t say anything, though his act melted into real annoyance in a quite organic way, if Dirk could say so himself. He slumped down to rest his back against the wall again at one point.

Jon’s look on Dirk steeled up more and more the further into the night day they go, and when the van stopped again and Adrian called Jon outside, probably for a rest stop, the disdain with which he threw the sandwiches at Dirk and Todd was palpable. The air seemed ten times lighter after he left.

“I found a— I found Farah’s chip in my jacket,” Todd said hastily the moment the footsteps faded. He held the edge of his windbreaker up to show Dirk something that Dirk didn’t quite catch. “It— ugh, just— your hand!” He pushed the edge into Dirk’s hands, and… Oh. There was a small lump there where the rest of the fabric was smooth. “Those tracker we got from— the Wisecracker case. Farah is probably on the way to get us now.”

Dirk broke into a wide, wide grin. “Brilliant! Great assisting, Todd!”

“That is. Well. Unless she’s still…”

“No way.”

“Yeah,” Todd nodded, amiably, and picked up his sandwich, “you’re right. No way.”

They ate and talked, about the case, about Farah, about the weird creepy old lady with the murderous goldfish (“That tank in her living room really should have tipped us off,” Todd said, but Dirk didn’t find that a fault. Sometimes things just are outside of their imagination, and that is fine). Todd still resolutely didn’t mention their kidnappers, staying true to his promise to not let himself start on the tirade he had been holding back. Dirk felt compelled to honor his promise to not let him start as well.

 

* * *

 

Too soon the back door opened again - it was light out now - and Jon climbed back in, and Dirk could feel Todd shift into his sullen mode. Which was warranted, because Jon looked spoiling for a fight.

Now that Dirk knew Farah could very possibly be on the way to rescue them at this very moment, the hope and tension competed inside him to make up a giddy mood that perched precariously on the verge of hysteria. Todd’s fuse was burning away in front of his eyes, however, and Dirk grasped onto his own buzzing to clamp it down desperately in order to not add fuel to Todd’s fire. Farah must be close, they had been gone for… three days now. She must be.

When Jon’s phone buzzed, his grip on the thing made Dirk wince. “Left,” he said hastily, just so Jon would stop with that. But, well.

Jon thumped on the separating wall, just a bit violently. Just a bit. “Y’hear that, Addie? He says left!”

Todd and Dirk shared a look.

The phone buzzed again, and whatever text Adrian sent was definitely scathing, because Jon threw the thing at Todd, who had to drop to a side to avoid it. It clattered on the floor between Dirk and Todd, mostly intact, and that blew Jon’s sentiments into double size. He bolted upright only to knock his head on the roof and swear. His gun was lowered, away from Dirk and Todd.

Todd jumped onto the chance with a spite-powered vigor. Dirk yelped and pressed himself into the corner as Todd lunged for Jon’s gun arm, yanking it towards him. They toppled to the floor, gun splayed out in front of them, and the unmistakable flash-and-bang of it going off startled Dirk again. He hazily considered jumping for it as well, but then Jon pushed Todd off just far enough to punch him square across the jaw, and then Todd was on the floor and Jon was sitting up and the gun was on Todd again.

Dirk moved in just as the van halted, the lurch sent Jon into the separating wall, and the bullet grazed Todd’s calf on its way through the floor.

Todd shouted. And again. And again. He curled up on himself, almost kneeing himself in the face while he reached for the wound.

He didn’t stop screaming when Dirk crashed beside him, didn’t recognize Dirk’s arms behind him holding him up until they shook him. “Todd! Todd, look at me!” The pair of blue eyes that met Dirk’s was wide, wide open.

“It’s falling off,” Todd choked on a grunt, “my leg— it’s- it’s cut through—”

“Todd, look at me,” Dirk repeated, and oh, oh no, fear was seeping into his voice as well, this would not do, calm down, _calm down_ — “Don’t look at your leg! Look at me! It’s still there, there’s no hole on it, it’s the attack telling you it’s cut through, listen to me instead.”

Todd swallowed, and his eyes were wet, and Dirk grabbed at the hands he clapped around his calf (his wrists were red and raw, scrubbed by the zip tie) and just held then as tightly as possible. Their forehead knocked together, and Todd’s eyes were screwed shut, and he was hiccuping now. “My—” he gasped, “give me my— my pills—”

Dirk’s heart sank, possibly to where that bloody bullet had gone, deep, deep into the dark earth. “I don’t—” He felt his throat closing up, refusing to deliver the news, stubbornly defying even the facts of the situation, and he opted to push Todd into his chest instead, to just hold him and feel the way he trembled. “I’m sorry, Todd, when they—”

Todd was crying now, and oh God, Dirk really wished he could just tear himself into a million threads and weave himself back into whatever it was that could comfort Todd, wished he could rearrange his atoms into the pills Todd needed. He wished to be Mona instead of himself, just sitting there clinging onto this friend, useless, utterly useless.

This kidnapping officially became the worst one yet.

Jon swore up a storm at it all, and Adrian was standing right outside, and Dirk never wanted to be somewhere less than he wanted to be here right now. “And what’s their deal, these- bunch of _freaks_!” He only registered that from Jon’s tirade.

Todd was finally winding down, the pain leaving him like droplets of mist, and underneath there was a foreign emptiness. That definitely scared Dirk a bit, so he just pulled Todd in even closer, and waited for Todd to fall asleep as usually the case after unmedicated attacks.

Jon was still seated with them in the back when the van moved again, and he stared at them the whole way.

Todd didn’t fall asleep. He sat slumped in the corner, eyes almost blank, and he was silent. Still as a rock, save for the lurches along with the van. Dirk vaguely picked up the change in background noises - the sounds of other vehicles on the road, and the sounds of people, they were somewhere with actual occupants now - but all fell off his focus save for Todd’s statue-like stillness.

He hadn’t liked many things that happened during the last three days, but this was a new level of dread.

They sat there for Dirk didn’t knew how long, the clear patch of glass on the window brightening then dimming, and finally the van stopped. The back door opened, Jon stood up to usher Dirk out with his gun hand. He then dragged Todd out by his arm, and Dirk almost hit his face on the floor of the van trying to climb in to stop him from doing that.

“He just had an attack!” He said at Adrian’s gun in his face. “Can you people at least act like learned, civilized men?”

Adrian stared at him, and then said to Jon, “Go easy on him.” And then he stared at him some more.

“Are you waiting for me to thank you,” Dirk asked flatly. Adrian had the heart to look slightly ashamed, but he rolled his eyes, just to bring that not-entirely-terribleness to sea level again. Dirk huffed, stood up straight, and turned around to grab at Todd’s shoulder as he dropped down to the ground.

Todd looked at him, and - there was something now where the emptiness was before.

That cleared Dirk’s head just a bit.

They were at a dingy little apartment complex, dimly lit, damp and dank against the red sunset. The stair up to the gate was slippery in a concerning way, and three of the four doors immediately in Dirk’s sight were busted.

They climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. The fourth floor was drastically messier than the ground floor. Paper stuck to almost every surface, practically lining their every steps. The air smelled of mold and rusted steel pipes and wet concrete. Dirk caught the sight of a magazine cover next to his foot, and from there it wasn’t hard to realize that the paper was all magazine pages.

Adrian’s pace quickened, leading them to the innermost apartment. The door wasn’t locked. The inside was covered in the same magazine pages in the hallway, and smelled even worse, a fact that could be explained by the universe’s worst fish tank ever on a counter under the living room’s window. Yes, Dirk had biases against rotting water plants and murky water and a big, uncomfortably human mouth lurking amidst the muddy green hue, but in his defense, he was pretty sure so did fishes and any other living creatures.

Except for Adrian, apparently. He walked up to the tank, checked through it, mumbled ‘okay, this is here’ possibly while cross-referencing in his head the prophecy which Dirk remembered none of, and then just ignored it the same way he ignored Todd. Jon just looked like he didn’t want to be here, and Dirk resent that he shared that sentiment with him.

They waited for something in the living room, Adrian’s gaze moving from the door to Dirk back to the door in regular intervals, while the sun went down outside the window, plunging the apartment into darkness except for the dull glow from the fish tank.

Boredom dulled Dirk’s simmering emotions, and he had started to feel the toll of the last three days on his everything while standing there in a dark, wet, magazine-lined, suspiciously-mouth-like-creature-infested apartment in some city. He looked at Todd, who didn’t look back at him and just continued to be frighteningly silent.

The apartment door opened when Dirk was mulling over breaking his promise to not let Todd start, and they all swung their bodies a bit forward in anticipation. A light shone in from the threshold, then a head popped in, looking from one side of the apartment to the other. It froze when catching Adrian’s eyes.

The gunshot rang clear through wet air before the newcomer could retreat. They fell backward as Adrian walked over, Dirk and Todd following him per Jon’s gun-accentuated nudge.

“Oh my God, oh my God.” The person was half-sobbing on their side on the floor, hand on their shoulder, which - oof, Dirk definitely recalled how a wound like that felt. They were wearing a hoodie, the percentage of their face not obscured by the hood was scrunched up into a Bad Feeling. “I’m so sorry, oh my God— I should’ve, I should have fed the, oh my God—”

Adrian didn’t seem to feel any particular way about the person he just shot in the shoulder (and about that - he was a better shot than Dirk anticipated, an information that raised something akin to molten sugar lava up in his stomach). He stood over them, voice still as even as ever when he asked, “Are you Jorji? Or do you, well, go by Jorji.”

The person clamped their mouth shut, which was a very wise course of action that warranted commendation. Their watery eyes shone under the light of the torch they dropped on the floor.

Adrian sighed. “Bring him inside, Jon.”

Dirk felt compelled to pipe up when the person was in upright position again. “I’m very sorry this is happening to you.” He didn’t really expect a reaction to that, really, the day mustn’t have been kind to them, but their eyes became even rounder when they finally looked at him properly.

“D- Dirk Gently!”

“That is my name,” Dirk said, and then dread fell over him at Adrian’s shift of attention on them. “Oh golly.”

They both duck, Dirk dragging supposedly-Jorji over to a side, as the shot again rang through the hallway. Jorji hit their wounded shoulder against the wall, which knocked the breath out of them, but they regained it fast enough to clamber up the wall when met with Adrian’s unfun end of the gun. Their eyes flashed with terror and hope intertwined as they looked between Adrian and Dirk, and they spilled when Adrian pressed in closer.

“I— I don’t know who you are! I’m not Jorji, I’m not whoever the hell you’re looking for, but Dirk G-Gently is here, so I did things right! I only forgot to feed the fish this morning! Please, it was one time, please!”

They were full on sobbing now, but, well, Dirk just solved the case, so one must forgive him for not feeling the full onset of sympathy at that moment. And also Jorji was the one dropping the book on his head, probably intentionally, so he needed to sort that small amount of spite out first.

Right now he yanked Jorji to a side again to avoid yet another gunshot, his ears full on ringing now, as he called over to Todd. “Todd! Todd! Solved it!”

Todd didn’t react. He was busy with something else. The something else being Adrian’s prophetic flyer.

“Hey, asshole,” Todd said, and for some reason it almost outrang the gunshot itself. “This is fucking Red Hearse.”

Adrian stopped aiming his gun to look at Todd, probably for the first time since he whapped him upside the head in order to be able to drag him into the van with Dirk.

“Excuse me,” he said, blinking in a bewildered manner.

“It’s fucking Red Hearse,” Todd said, his voice trembling with freezing fury now, and the flyer crumpled up even more in his fist. “Third song in their first album, _Launda-7_. Lead singer Syel West.”

Dirk looked at him, and yet another piece of the case slid in place. “ _Oh_ ,” he said.

“This is _viral marketing_ ,” Todd said, and the temperature in the hallway ought to have dropped at least a few degree Celsius by now. His eyes were bright with something directly opposite of a fever. “You kidnapped, hit, and shot at us, over a _fucking viral marketing campaign_.”

Adrian seemed surprised, but not that interested, which was becoming more and more irritating by the second now. “Huh.”

Jon, on the other hand, was fuming. “You _motherfucker_ ,” he growled. His gun pointed from Todd to Adrian in a wild arc. “Is that fucking it? Is he right? Is he saying the truth, Addie?”

“His truth doesn’t mean much,” Adrian said. “People are blind.”

“People are blind!” Jon barked, at the same time as Todd’s cold, cold “ _You’re a piece of shit._ ”

Dirk watched, just a tad bit stunned, as Todd walked over until he was only an arm’s length away from Adrian.

“I know your fucking prophet, Addie.” His stance wasn’t steady, but he didn’t look like he was grazed in the leg with a bullet. He looked like he was going to tear the throat out of the first person to touch him right now. “Syel West was my old bandmate. Every morning he opened the door, walked into the living room, said to me ‘we are all dying slowly’, then went and clogged both the sink and the toilet. He was a cesspool of a living thing. The fucking hangers in the closet were out of his reach from how far he’d sunk into the ground. He was a fucking burden on a human being’s soul, and so was his music. And- and from the look of it, no fucking wonder you take his lyrics as a prophecy.”

He inhaled, and Dirk could see him shake, just slightly.

“Anyone with actual human feelings would never entertain the idea of putting themself through listening to a Red Hearse song. But you don’t have actual human feelings, do you, _Addie_ ?” The sneer on Todd’s face was starting to scare Dirk just a little. “Human feelings go out. You just ferment them inside, like fucking surströmming, except not even edible, because now you’re just a walking tower of toxic waste. That’s not a success, no, you’ve— you’ve failed at _living_ from day one, but you’re gonna cope by twisting the truth instead of facing it, right? Your view on the world is unique, your input is unique, yeah, half of Twitter is the same. You aren’t fucking _right_.”

“I _am_ ,” Adrian’s answer was a bit weak, but, well, he was comparing to Todd right now.

“No you’re _not_!” Dirk and Jorji jumped at the volume. “What you are is a fucking flour sack baby wearing tinfoil hat! You’re delusional, and narcissistic, and _beneath us_. There is a reason you’re left behind by the word, there’s a rea— there’s a reason why your wife left you, and it _does_ have to do with you looking through her mails by the way! There’s a reason the only person you’ve persuaded into doing this with you thus far is your own brother, and that’s because you act like a cult leader with the charisma of a molding piece of cheese!”

“What—” Jon breathed out a syllable, before Todd whipped around to look at him.

“And _you_ ! No one’s gonna fucking baby you, you overgrown manchild. Normal people don’t feel comfort over being coddled like a toddler and being petulant, as if you— as if you’re in the middle of rebellious teen phase! Normal people don’t swing around a fucking gun while they throw a temper tantrum! You think you’re tough, but you’re _spineless_ , and he got you, he got you _good_ , and— and that’s fucking _pathetic_ because he fucking sucks at getting people! You’re evenly matched. You’re evenly a waste—”

“Shut up!” Jon shouted, and he shot Todd again, under the kneecap this time, and Todd screamed and fell. Dirk could hear himself yell Todd’s name, and suddenly he was between the guns just like Todd, sitting Todd upright again, covering the wound with his hands, saying _it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay_ over and over again, and Todd had his eyes screwed shut but he didn’t stop screaming, and before Dirk realized it the screams had morphed into actual words.

“ _That’s not how you win a fight, you jerk ass piece of microwave pizza dough!_ You think you shut your opponents up, but _nobody_ ’s your fucking opponents! No one’s out to ruin you! You made your life into this, the two of you on your own, and you’ll shoot everybody before you know to point your damn guns at each other—”

Todd’s fury was burning hot, and it contrasted with the cold Dirk felt on his back enough to turn his head around and meet Adrian’s eyes, finally wide, finally cold, and Jon was shouting but Todd’s voice still drowned his out, and there were footsteps from the stairs, and Adrian pulled the trigger but Dirk pushed Todd and himself off the bullet’s trajectory, and Jorji was practically crying, and—

—it was hard to tell another gun even went off, but when Dirk had sat up straight again, Adrian and Jon were both already on the floor, Adrian facing up on a pool of his own blood and Jon on his knees, an arm holding his own bleeding shoulder.

“Addie,” he mumbled, half-staring at his brother’s body (they were brothers. Dirk never even guessed that. They were brothers) through shallow huffs of breath.

Farah stood at the last step of the staircase still, breathing heavily, her eyes wide. Her gun had shifted from the corpse to Jorji. “Dirk, Todd,” she said, “oh my God.”

“Farah!” Dirk exclaimed, shaking Todd at the same time. “Oh, thank the stars you’re here… Todd was shot, and he needs his meds, and we all need sleep, but I did solve the case, and now we need to return to the old lady’s place, but first—”

“Let’s stop the bleeding first,” Farah said - she was right in front of them now, kneeling down next to Todd, and she had one hand on Todd’s knees already. Their in-car first aid kit laid open on her other side.

“Excellent plan of action Farah, just what I was about to suggest,” Dirk said, clapping his hands together. Both Farah and Jorji jumped a bit at the sudden noise, but Todd was deathly still again, eyes going from Dirk to Farah back to Dirk without his face ever moving. Dirk chewed on his lower lips.

A pair of scissors was thrusted into Dirk’s hands. “Cut Todd’s zip tie,” Farah said absentmindedly.

Todd’s hands were clasped together, tighter than must be comfortable. Dirk fumbled a bit, but got the blades to line up properly, and with a snip the plastic tie came off.

Todd’s hands didn’t move at all. They stayed clasped together, even as Todd stared at them with a single spare glance to Dirk in the middle. Dirk could tell he was clenching his teeth.

“It’s okay, Todd,” he reminded him, trying to not use the voice that could be easily misheard as talking-to-a-spooked-animal, “It’s alright, we’re not kidnapped anymore.”

Todd fixed his blue eyes on Dirk, and Dirk jumped at the anger still in it.

“If you don’t—” His expression shifted into a grimace, and Dirk was pretty sure he was biting on his own tongue, _oh gosh_ , and for a long moment Dirk feared something coming. The 'nevermind' after, breathless, churned the tension into something else equally heavy. Todd looked down at his hands again, then unclasped them, let them fall onto his lap. He clenched and unclenched them, like he was not sure how they worked anymore. Or maybe he wasn’t sure how the rest of him worked.

“The scissors,” he mumbled, holding up a hand. Dirk brushed aside his nervousness to give him the scissors.

There was the sound of scuffle behind them, and Dirk looked back just in time to see Jorji throw Jon off them. They were dragging Adrian towards the apartment by his legs.

“I need to, I need.” They hiccupped. “I need to feed the fish.”

Jon was fumbling for his gun, but a shot from Farah skirting his hand deterred him. Farah looked over at Dirk, and it took him a few moments to realize she was asking for his input. He swallowed - his mouth was dry. He hadn’t noticed. The discomfort of it couldn’t compete with most things that had happened thus far, both to him and… well.

“Let’s not interfere with _that_ ,” he said, cocking his head towards Jorji.

Farah opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, then opened it again to say presumably something else. “Okay. Can you get Todd up?” She stood up after Dirk nodded. “Thanks, Dirk.”

She went to collect Adrian’s and Jon’s guns, while the man looked on in what seemed to be shell shock. Dirk looked at Todd just in time to see Todd’s weary exhale. His expression was still tense.

“Let’s go home, Todd,” Dirk said, gently (ha), to which Todd didn’t reply. He didn’t protest - or react much really - when Dirk draped his arm over the shoulder to pull him into a standing position. The way he gritted his teeth and hissed made Dirk grimace, but he never looked at Dirk.

He didn’t look at Dirk, or Farah when she came back to support his other side, and he didn’t look at them the rest of the way to Farah’s know-someone-who-knows-someone clinic.

“Drive me back to my apartment,” he said the moment they left the clinic.

Farah took a deep breath, while Dirk leaned forward with his hands on his thighs and said, “Actually, I am in a rare post-kidnapping mood that’s just perfect for a sleepover at the office! We still have ice cream in the mini fridge, and we can watch something while doing a review on this case— oh, I never even mentioned the solution to this case! We could start with that—”

The stare Todd was fixing on him effectively shut him up. Todd was still gritting his teeth, and he looked like he was _seething_ now, but there was desperation mixed into the blue of his eyes.

Dirk swallowed.

They didn’t speak for the rest of the way.

 

* * *

 

When they arrived back at Dirk’s and Todd’s block, Farah followed them up to Todd’s floor. Dirk catched his eyes before the door was slammed on them.

“He had never looked like that before,” Dirk said. His stomach felt both heavy with anxiety and strangely empty. “This kidnapping went very badly, and I am not thrilled about many parts of it, but if there were one thing I’ve had enough of now…” He looked at Farah.

Farah definitely had a headache to worry about, if the way she pinched the bridge of her nose spoke of something. “There’s nothing I can tell you, Dirk. He usually just says what’s bothering him. What happened before I arrived?”

“He,” Dirk worried his lip, “ah, _exploded_.” He took a breath at Farah’s confused stare. “I think that is the appropriate way to word it. He ‘laid it on’ our kidnappers so viciously they kind of forgot they wanted to murder Jorji. The I-have-to-feed-the-fish person, if you recall.”

“Okay, okay,” Farah palmed her face, “we’re gonna review the case tomorrow. But if he… Okay, I only remember one moment during the two runaway months when he’s… _exploded_ … on someone. But he was done with it then and there. He wasn’t like _this_ ,” she gestured towards the closed door, “after.”

Dirk just stood there, fidgeting with his hands. He opened his mouth, but then remembered the way Todd’s words cut off when he told him _it’s okay_ in the hallway. He had an idea of what Todd was going to say. He couldn’t entertain it, not coupled with the way fury lit Todd’s eyes in an all-consuming fire, not when it was already choking him up as a mere suspicion.

Farah sighed. “I don’t want to leave him like this.”

That gave Dirk a direction to go in, and he grasped at it with desperation. “I’ll come in to check on him,” he said, clapping his hands together. “I still have spare keys to his apartment. Once I’ve made it inside, I will keep you updated.”

Farah looked at him, long and hard, and in the end she huffed. “I wish I’m better at this,” she said, softly. Shifting her stance, she took a deep breath, a hand on her hip. “I’ll count on you, Dirk. Send me an update before you go to sleep, okay? If there’s a problem, call.”

Dirk maintain eye contact as he nodded, and only remembered that Todd’s spare keys that he was entrusted with had been confiscated and thrown away along with his phone after she was already driving away.

“I’m climbing the window, Todd,” he knocked on the door and said.

The door opened when he was at the stairs. Todd popped his head out to look for him, and when he saw him walking back to the door again, made an aborted attempt to close it.

When Dirk was there again, hands behind his back, the most genuine smile he could muster on his lips, Todd forced a sigh out of himself. “I’m fine, Dirk,” he said. “Go home.”

“I very much do still want a sleepover,” Dirk said.

Todd brought a hand to his face. “Just— _fuck_.” That syllable was very heartfelt. “Just tell me what the fuck to say so you’ll go away.” He grimaced at his own words, which was fair, because they were _mean_. They were vicious, comparable to the words Todd shouted at Adrian and Jon, and they made tears well up in Dirk’s eyes. He blinked them away furiously, pushing the tightness in his lungs and the drop of his stomach away. He was in the middle of something here.

“I’m sorry,” Todd said, a moment later. “But you shouldn’t be here right now.”

“Todd,” Dirk said.

Todd just stared at him, lips pursed and eyes heavy with desperation and dread and anger still boiling, and Dirk couldn’t imagine it felt good to hold onto all that. “Why are you so ready to sit through all of this shit,” Todd mumbled. “What is— what the fuck is wrong with— why.”

“What is the ‘this shit’ you’re talking about, Todd,” Dirk said.

“All of this!” Todd raised his volume again, but he clamped it down immediately when Dirk flinched. “All of— the moment I open my mouth I’m gonna _hurt_ you, Dirk! I didn’t start and it was all swell but then Adrian— and I _started_ and you didn’t, you _didn’t_ , you _let_ me _start_ , and now it’s _not stopping_ ! Even when I look at Farah, even when you’re— right _here_! Where I can fucking hurt you and destroy our friendship and never be able to stop myself, because it has boiled over. The fucking filth inside my head has boiled over. It’s— it’s just. Out.”

Dirk stood there, bewildered, as Todd’s breathing slowed even if it didn’t become less heavy. “I need to sit down,” he mumbled, and slid down the door onto the ground.

Dirk also sat down, because he was worried, and also he was still holding back tears. “Todd,” he said.

“Go home,” Todd mumbled.

“Whatever it is inside your head, it’s not filth.”

There was pain, both physical and soul-deep, mixed into the concoction of emotions in Todd’s eyes when he looked at Dirk again. “It’s not _good_. When you lie, you—” He choked on an inhale. “You learn to see people’s bad sides first. That’s what you work with. And then that’s what you remember of them. And then that’s what threatens to come out of your mouth, at all times. You have t— you have to  _try_ to not be an asshole.”

He palmed his face, and his next breath sounded like a sob.

“And now the lid is off, and without it I— you saw. And you—”

“—am still here,” Dirk finished that sentence for him.

Todd didn’t look up at him, but his hands clenched into fists on his thighs.

Dirk scooted in closer. “Here’s my reasoning,” he said, softly, and put a hand on Todd’s arm. “You were kidnapped, you were hit over the head, you went through two attacks, one without aid and one when you’ve missed a dose of medication, you were holed up in a van for three days, you were shot in the leg, and you went through all of that while confronting the people whose company you would never willingly be in. That pushed you over the line, and you ‘boiled over’ as you said. And yet,” he resolutely wiped his eyes with the back of his free hand and finished the speech, “you bit your tongue instead of saying something that’d hurt me. You’d rather close yourself up than risk being mean to me and Farah. This feeling, the anger, seems to take winding down, maybe an outlet, to leave, and I can see it doesn’t feel good to hold onto, but you turn it inward to protect us from it.”

Dirk squeezed Todd’s arm. Todd was looking at him now.

“Before the agency and Farah and you,” Dirk said, and well, he was crying. Slightly. He could still talk. “Nobody has ever been this considerate to me.”

“Your standards are too low,” Todd said.

“Maybe so, but! My point is, to say something is an action, Todd. The content of your thoughts is your business unless you make it mine as well, but your actions affect me visibly. And the result is good, positive, because you are my best friend! I’m your friend, and I want to be, and I appreciate the things you do, and I want to help and check on you, and,” Dirk swallowed. “I’m _not leaving_.”

Todd looked at him for a long time. He held the gaze, despite his eyes stinging a bit with tears. Todd’s eyes were wet too, but they had grown clearer.

“You’re incorrigible,” Todd said, small and a bit broken up, but fond. “And also sound like a daytime TV psychiatrist.”

Dirk grinned. “I went to a lot of therapy sessions,” he said. “Or, well, I listened in on a lot of therapy sessions. Was in the proximity of. Walked by. May I use your landline? I promised to text Farah, but we did both lose our phone.”

“She’s gonna drive over the moment the phone rings, and she’ll see us sitting here, and she’ll be so disappointed.”

“Then,” Dirk said, his hand still on Todd’s arm, warm, and he felt his heart lighten when the same warm reflected in Todd’s blue, blue eyes, “it’ll be the perfect opportunity for a sleepover.”

 

* * *

 

“Truth be told,” Dirk told Todd when he settled down next to him on the mattress, Farah already dozing off on the other side, the sound on the laptop they were watching Netflix on lowered to mostly whispers, “I was very impressed by some of the insults you used on Adrian and Jon. They were _mean_ … but _inspired_.”

Todd snickered. “Thank yourself for it.”

“I, hum, don’t insult people? And definitely not in that fashion...” Dirk stared up at the ceiling.

“It’s not word for word, Jesus. It’s the method. You’re- you’re rubbing off on me.”

Dirk mulled the idea over, and decided that he liked it. “Sounds fantastic,” he said.

Todd’s huff was muffled through the blanket, but the light jab of elbow on his arm was affectionate. It made Dirk smile absently.

“Of course.”

 


End file.
